Jazz Articles

Our daily articles are carefully curated by the All About Jazz staff. You can find more articles by searching our website, see what's trending on our popular articles page or read articles ahead of their published dates on our Coming Soon page. Read our daily album reviews.

Album Review

Frank London: Touzle Your Kurchy

Read "Touzle Your Kurchy" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
September 21, 2026

Trumpeter Frank London has never been one to color neatly inside the historical lines. Known for his groundbreaking work with the Klezmer Conservatory Band and The Klezmatics, the restless downtown maestro has spent decades detonating cultural boundaries. With the Loisaida Fife and Drum Corps, he turns his sights toward eighteenth-and nineteenth-century Americana, dragging dusty martial traditions into a sweaty, musical block party. The album borrows its title from an antique Scots-English fife-and-drum tune--a flirtatious dare to rumple someone's kerchief--and that ...

Album Review

Tara Minton: The Devil Invites You To Dance

Read "The Devil Invites You To Dance" reviewed by Neil Duggan

by Neil Duggan
September 9, 2026

With themes from Aztec mythology and Latin American traditional dance, Tara Minton's The Devil Invites You To Dance follows a soul's journey through the underworld of shadows and desire. The Australian harpist, vocalist and composer wrote the album over two weeks in Mexico City's Coyoacán borough, immersing herself in its culture, music, street art and dance. The resulting 10-track album features an outstanding ensemble comprising Miguel Gorodi on trumpet and flugelhorn, John J Williamson on double bass, David ...

Album Review

ContraPunctus: ContraPunctus

Read "ContraPunctus" reviewed by Bret McCabe

by Bret McCabe
July 9, 2026

The New York quartet ContraPunctus eases into the third track on its 2026 self-titled debut with about 15 seconds of musical suggestion. Bassist Gui Duvignau and drummer Hamir Atwal respond to pianist Carmen Staaf's gentle Fender Rhodes melody with a tempo that starts at a comfortable clip. Staaf eloquently establishes the melody in the next few seconds--Juan Tizol and Duke Ellington's “Caravan"--that clarinetist Mike McGinnis picks up and continues. McGinnis and Staaf trade the tune's theme as the quartet establishes an elastic, rollicking synergy. ...

Album Review

Ben Ferrell: Sextet

by Jack Bowers
July 2, 2026

On Sextet, bassist Ben Ferrell's six-member group strives with mixed results to maintain magnetism and diversity in five of his generally low-key compositions, some of which might benefit from an occasional shot of adrenalin. Ferrell apparently knows where he is going, and shares what can be described as a cool journey. There are three detours (Thelonious Monk's “Light Blue," Kenta Nagata's “Dragon Roost Island," Martin O'Donnell's “Never Forget," only one of which--"Never Forget"--appreciably raises the session's overall temperature). ...

Album Review

Elsa Nilsson: Liminal

Read "Liminal" reviewed by Mike Jurkovic

by Mike Jurkovic
June 5, 2026

If, for just 52 minutes, one needs to step away from the breach, do not hesitate to push play on Liminal. A Brooklyn conceptualist by way of Sweden and Seattle, “Andetag" (Swedish for “breath") opens flautist/composer Elsa Nilsson's Liminal. But, all things considered, it could have been sequenced anywhere in the playlist given Nilsson's nod to late-night dance floors. Elusive, bluesy and a very danceable dance of equals, Band of Pulses--Nilsson, fellow piano arsonist Santiago Leibson, wiry bassist Marty Kenney ...

Album Review

Matt White: Matt White's Dolly

Read "Matt White's Dolly" reviewed by Katchie Cartwright

by Katchie Cartwright
May 25, 2026

A miniature doll-like effigy of the great country music singer-songwriter Dolly Parton adorns the cover of trumpeter-composer Matt White's Dolly. How did the Queen of Country become the subject of this fascinating (if awkwardly-branded) mainstream jazz album? Happenstance. White was researching Gullah songs for his 2023 album, Lowcountry (Ropeadope), when YouTube “Pandorized" him into a video of a young Parton, guitar in hand, performing “The Bridge," solo, on the Porter Wagoner television show in the '60s. He made ...

Album Review

Billy Martin + Matt Glassmeyer + Jonathan Goldberger: State Fête

Read "State Fête" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
February 7, 2026

Billy Martin, the renowned groove master and founding drummer of Medeski Martin & Wood, has spent decades collaborating with boundary--pushing artists including John Lurie in the Lounge Lizards and John Zorn in his Cobra ensembles, all while exploring instrument design, filmmaking, and visual art. His 2026 project, State Fête, unites him with multi-instrumentalist Matt Glassmeyer and guitarist Jonathan Goldberger in a captivating exploration of live-composed soundscapes--think of it as a sonic state fair where the familiar becomes delightfully warped.

Album Review

Rachel Eckroth & John Hadfield, featuring Petros Klampanis: Olhos de Gato

Read "Olhos de Gato" reviewed by Katchie Cartwright

by Katchie Cartwright
December 1, 2025

Rachel Eckroth and John Hadfield were in Greece to record Speaking In Tongues (Adhyâropa Records, 2025). The freewheeling piano-drum duo found themselves with an extra day in Athens after finishing the recording, so they decided to enlist bassist Petros Klampanis for another little session, just for fun. No expectations, just a bit of free improvisation. At one point, they pulled out Carla Bley's “Olhos de Gato" (aka “Sad Song"). The piece is deep and beautiful, in the kind ...

Album Review

Rachel Eckroth & John Hadfield: Speaking In Tongues

Read "Speaking In Tongues" reviewed by Katchie Cartwright

by Katchie Cartwright
July 19, 2025

John Hadfield wrote “Blood Moon" in shocked response to learning that, in 1504, during his fourth transatlantic voyage, Christopher Columbus had used his knowledge of an upcoming Blood Moon eclipse to manipulate reluctant indigenous Jamaicans into granting him food and supplies. The Jamaicans had been fooled before by Columbus' unfair trade practices and wanted no part of him, that is until he made them believe that it was his magic that had turned the moon a fiery red-orange and caused ...

Album Review

Ofri Nehemya: Time Traveler

Read "Time Traveler" reviewed by Neil Duggan

by Neil Duggan
May 14, 2025

This is the debut album from Israeli drummer and composer Ofri Nehemya. It features compositions written over a decade ago that have developed and evolved over the intervening years as his influences widened and his career took flight. As a 17-year-old Nehemya joined Israeli saxophonist Eli Degibri quartet before moving to play on a global tour with bassist Avishai Cohen. His next move was to New York, where he recorded albums with Omer Avital before a collaboration with ...